В статье предпринята попытка описать язык как структурную организацию. Целью статьи стала попытка обосновать системные отношения между лексическими единицами, которые привели к возникновению теории полей.
Ключевые слова: система, полевая теория, семантическое поле, ассоциативное поле, семантические группы.
Consideration of language as a system in itself and for itself [1] is the basic postulate of classical linguistics. The vocabulary of any language is not just a collection of interrelated and interdependent units, it is an integral part of the lexical system.
The existence of various types of lexical associations has attracted the attention of scholars even in the 19th century. The idea of a systematic vocabulary and the concept of vocabulary grouping by semantic, subject or conceptual attributes began to be described in the late XIX — early XX century in the works of F. de Saussure, A. A. Potebnya, G. Ipsen, H. E. Schuchardt, including the works of M. M. Pokrovsky, who wrote that “words and their meanings do not live a life separate from each other, but are united in our soul, regardless of our consciousness into various groups,” and the basis for combining words into lexical groups is verbal associations reflecting the connections of objects in the environment the world [6, p. 82].
Attempts to substantiate systemic relationships between lexical units led to the emergence of the theory of the semantic field. It should be noticed that in linguistics, as native as foreign, there is no single integral understanding of the «field» concept.
Despite the fact that linguists interpret the structural organization of the field, its volumes and forms differently, the theory was being developed, discussed and attracted by new supporters: “ the field theory turned out to be effective, because in the concept of “field” linguists managed to realize the idea of the presence of a certain structural quantity, which unites vocabulary into a lexical — semantic system, where each lexeme reveals this value as a dominant «seme» of lexical meaning ” [2, p. 93].
Early XX th. the field theory was actively promoted by German scientists. For the first time, the term «semantic field» was used by G. Ipsen to designate a lexical-semantic community, which he described as «a set of words with a common meaning» [8, p. 200–237].
J. Trier is considered to be the founder of the field approach, since he was the first to analyze specific fields in his works. J. Trier's notion, that language divides the world, which exists in human consciousness in the form of a closed conceptual complex, formed the basis of the concept of the field. According to the scientist, each such field in the conceptual sphere is identified in the language with the lexical (verbal) field (or the field of verbal signs — Wortzeichenfeld), and the meaning of an individual word depends on the meaning of other words, their semantics intersect [11].
The theory of the German philologist W. Porzig, who defined the field as simple phrases and constructions (combining an action (verb) with an object or subject, an adjective and a noun), had a significant influence on the field theory [10].
The idea of field theory was also developed by a number of Russian linguists. M. M. Pokrovsky, who wrote that words should be investigated according to the spheres of ideas, that’s within the whole lexical group, which refers to the everyday, social and spiritual life of a person [5, c. 17]. Another famous expert V. V. Vinogradov focused on the property of language to combine concepts into complex unities: “A characteristic feature of the Russian language is the tendency to group words in large bundles around the main centers of meanings” [3, p. 15].
Further study of the relationships between lexical units and methods of their organization led to the identification of other types of fields, except for the semantic ones. By studying systemic phenomena, scientists have described the field based on associations.
N. V. Krushevsky (Mikołaj Kruszewski), a representative of the Kazan linguistic school, was one of the first to speak out on the subject of associative-semantic links of lexical units [4]. If German linguists understood by association only the combination of various representations into a single whole, then N. V. Krushevsky believed that the ordering of the system is based on the law of associations and derived two laws — associations by contiguity (order of sequence) and by similarity (order of coexistence) [4, p.12].
Certain theses of field theory based on the associative principle, were close to some American and European linguists. The association method or associative experiment has become one of the most common methods for evaluating semantic fields. The experiments of American researchers G. Kent and A. Rosanoff in psycholinguistics were carried out in the beginning of XXth century. The purpose of these experiments was to reveal the existence of associative links between nominations in the mind of a person [9]. According to the results, combining factors around this word-stimulus were a group of associates: for example, a cow and a goat have a commonality not only because of the association with animals, but also because their associates can be a word farm, meat, milk, grass and etc. [7, p.82].
It should be said that the idea of identifying lexical groups based on associations belongs to the Swiss philologist Ch. Bally, who began to describe this kind of association with the term «associative field». An important thesis in the scientist's research was the interpretation of the field as a psychological phenomenon, in which attention was focused on the affinity and distance of associations [1, p. 151, 154]. However, according to G. S. Schur, the interpretation of the field as a mental phenomenon has a number of difficulties and, therefore, this way of describing associative connections is very subjective, since the appearance of certain associates in a person's consciousness directly depends on many factors: such as mood, age, profession, social status, and etc. [7, p. 85–86].
It should be admitted, that studies of various kinds of semantic groupings and fields, carried out by linguistic scientists, have generally contributed to the development of modern linguistics. Within the framework of the field approach to language, there were both opponents and supporters of this concept of lexical cooperation.
References:
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2. Башарина А. К. Понятие «семантическое поле» // Вестник Северо-Восточного федерального университета им. М. К. Аммосова. 2007. Т. 4. № 1. С. 93–96.
3. Виноградов В. В. Русский язык: грамматическое учение о слове: учеб. пособие / В. В. Виноградов; отв. ред. Г. А. Золотова. — 3-е изд., испр. — М.: Высш. Шк., 1986. — 640 с.
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5. Покровский М. М. Несколько вопросов из области семасиологии. Ответ А. А. Грушке / М. М. Покровский // Филологическое обозрение. 1897. Т. 12.Кн. 1. — с. 57–99.
6. Покровский М. М. Избранные работы по языкознанию / М. М. Покровский. — М.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1959. — 385 с.
7. Щур Г. С. Теория поля в лингвистике / Г. С. Щур. — Изд. 3 — е, исправленное и доп. — М: URSS: Изд-во Либроком, 2009. ˗ 253 с.
8. Ipsen G. Der alte Orient und die Indogermanen // Stand und Aufgaben der Sprachvwissenschaft / Festschrift fur W. Streiberg. Heidelberg: Winter, 1924. — S. 200 –237.
9. Kent, G. H., Rosanoff, A. J. A Study of Association in Insanity. American Journal of Insanity,1910, no. 67, p. 37–96, 317–390.]
10. Porzig, W. Wesenhafte Bedeutungsbereihungen / W. Porzig // Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur. — 1934. — Bd. 58. — S. 72
11. Trier J. Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes (Die Geschichte eins sprachliches Feldes). Heidelberg: Winter, 1931. Bd I. — S. 347.
[1] A well-known allusion to the words of Ferdinand de Saussure, that linguistics should study language as a system of languages and makes differences between language (linguistic relations) and speech (individual, concrete).
